Updated Tuesday, March 7, 2017, 1 p.m.: Earlier today, citing a story from HBCU Digest, we reported that Morehouse had fired President John Silvanus Wilson Jr.

Apparently we were wrong.

Or maybe we weren’t.

This morning, Wilson sent a letter to students explaining that reports of his ouster were “not accurate.”

But yesterday’s letter from the chairman of the board of trustees says that William “Bill” Taggart, the chief operating officer, will assume control of day-to-day operations. Wilson’s letter from today, however, says that he remains as president, “continuing to manage … day-to-day operations.”

Organized labor and civil society organizations have been critics of U.S. trade policy for years. Yet, it wasn’t until the 2016 election of President Donald Trump—who as a Republican candidate made anti-trade rhetoric a centerpiece of his campaign—that a rethinking of U.S. trade policy is finally in the spotlight. Since his inauguration, President Trump has moved quickly to reshape America’s approach to international economic affairs, including pledging to give “American workers a fair deal” by renegotiating or withdrawing from U.S. trade agreements.

Rejecting trade agreements outright will not end global competition for U.S. workers who will continue to confront corporate relocation and dislocation; the global economy is here to stay. What the United States is failing to do is to help American workers whose jobs have been displaced by the complex forces unleashed by globalization and automation.

Today’s highly competitive global economy regularly produces winners and losers, as competitive pressures lead to thousands of jobs being created and destroyed every day. And while trade has a role to play in this dynamic, it is not the only explanation for this volatility and instability. It is just one among many factors, which include technological change, industrial shifts, tax incentives, global workforce expansion, the pursuit of low-cost labor, and customer tastes and desires, among others.

Still, when it comes to the debate over the costs and benefits of trade, proponents of open trade focus disproportionately on its benefits without paying equal attention to the plight of those on the losing end of the stick. This is not a fair approach. Moreover, ignoring those who have been negatively affected by the impact of trade and other factors has led to the intractable debate we find ourselves in today.

Or consider this. Since WikiLeaks has just released a trove of documents from the CIA’s Center for Cyber Intelligence, who do you think our president will side with? Will he side with the folks who worked with his buddy Roger Stone to destroy Hillary Clinton’s campaign?

Trust me, it will soon the Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary

Or will Trump side with the folks who are pretty clearly convinced that he was in collusion with the Russians and have been treating him as a counterintelligence case?

Will people on the left be outraged that Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah said that they can just give up their Android phones if they need extra coin to afford health insurance, or will they save their energy to criticize the CIA for making sure that Android phones are insecure?

Last night the Republicans released their Obamacare repeal/replacement plan. They’re calling it the “American Health Care Act” or AHCA (I’m sure there’s no intention to confuse people with the ACA, is there?) If you’d like to read a summary of what it does/doesn’t do, I’d recommend checking out what has been written by Sarah Kliff, Tierney Sneed, Kevin Drum and/or Michael Hiltzik.

After checking in with all those expert wonks, I think that Ezra Klein nailed the overarching problem with this:

It is difficult to say what question, or set of questions, would lead to this bill as an answer. Were voters clamoring for a bill that cut taxes on the rich, raised premiums on the old, and cut subsidies for the poor? Will Americans be happy when 15 million people lose their health insurance and many of those remaining face higher deductibles?…

This bill has a lot of problems, and more will come clear as experts study its language, the Congressional Budget Office release its estimates, and industry players make themselves heard. But the biggest problem this bill has is that it’s not clear why it exists. What does it make better? What is it even trying to achieve? Democrats wanted to cover more people and reduce long-term costs, and they had an argument for how their bill did both. As far as I can tell, Republicans have neither. At best, you can say this bill makes every obvious health care metric a bit worse, but at least it cuts taxes on rich people?

The Columbia School of Journalism recently published a fascinating study of media coverage during the 2016 election. Kevin Drum has a nice summary of what they found, but his title, “Breitbart Takes Over the Right” is a bit misleading.

Let’s take a look at two of the charts CSJ produced. First, here is the Twitter ecosystem during the presidential campaign.

Notice that Breitbart dominates on the right (even dwarfing Fox News), while there are several major players on the left/center (yeah, I don’t agree with how all those outlets are labelled either — but that’s for another day).

But the real kicker is something most of us noticed as it was happening — the focus of the coverage. Here is the CSJ graph on that:

What got the most coverage by far are scandals related to Clinton. Scandals related to Trump got very little coverage, while reporting on Trump issues was more prevalent than reporting on Clinton issues. But even with that disparity in mind, CJS demonstrates that:

This pro-Trump media sphere appears to have not only successfully set the agenda for the conservative media sphere, but also strongly influenced the broader media agenda, in particular coverage of Hillary Clinton….While mainstream media coverage was often critical, it nonetheless revolved around the agenda that the right-wing media sphere set: immigration.

Here is their conclusion:

Our own study of over 1.25 million stories published online between April 1, 2015 and Election Day shows that a right-wing media network anchored around Breitbart developed as a distinct and insulated media system, using social media as a backbone to transmit a hyper-partisan perspective to the world. This pro-Trump media sphere appears to have not only successfully set the agenda for the conservative media sphere, but also strongly influenced the broader media agenda, in particular coverage of Hillary Clinton.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — The family of the chief justice who presided over the Supreme Court 160 years ago apologized to the family of a slave who tried to sue for his freedom.

Charley Taney on Monday apologized for the words written by his great-great-grand-uncle Roger Brooke Taney in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision. Roger Taney wrote that African Americans could not have rights of their own and were inferior to white people.

Charley Taney stood outside the Maryland State House on Monday and apologized to Lynne Jackson, the great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott, whose lawsuit prompted the decision. Jackson accepted the apology for her family and for “all African Americans.”

Morehouse College President John Silvanus Wilson is officially the former president of the HBCU, three months earlier than antcipated, according to HBCU Digest. The move comes just days after Wilson penned a letter in reaction to his White House meeting with President Donald Trump and other HBCU Presidents.

In a Reuters piece titled, “Behind Scenes, Ivanka Encouraged Trump’s Change of Tone: Sources,” we are once again subjected to the fable about daughter dearest being the calmer, moderate voice in 45’s inner circle. Reuters reporters Steve Holland and John Walcott note that per a senior White House official, during a brainstorming session in the Oval Office Sunday, it was Ivanka who assisted her father in alleviating concerns about his temperament and whether he could govern effectively.

The source explained:

He had a lot of voices around him giving him ideas and suggestions that he incorporated, but he really set out to achieve that optimistic tone and that was something she was supportive of. She encouraged him to do that.

………………………………………….

While it’s totally plausible to believe that Ivanka give her father a few tips, the problem lies in the clear intent behind this story.

It boggles the mind how she successfully manages to get outlets to repeatedly write stories about her as if she is some liberal, despite no evidence to support such categorization.

There are so many generous reports that claim Ivanka had spoken like a Democrat on the campaign trial—including at the Republican National Convention. Still, saying that women deserve maternity leave and that child care matters doesn’t make you a progressive. Neither does vacationing with a rich Democrat, as she and her power-hungry misclassified husband, Jared Kushner, have done recently. The same goes for giving money to Democratic candidates. After all, her father said he gave to both Democrats and Republicans because as a businessman, it’s smart to have friends on both sides.

These days, if you don’t hate people having health care, don’t hang out with white supremacists, and don’t complain about there being a BET Awards and not a WET Awards, some might proclaim that you sound like a Democrat. Not all of us share these low expectations, though. Ivanka herself said that she doesn’t claim to be a Democrat or a Republican, but that falls in line with most “independents” who are merely people with both political ideologies and commitment issues.

Yet, without nary a sign of a receipt, Ivanka Trump gets christened liberal or moderate or not dead inside, like her daddy.

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Even though 3Chics Politico is written and curated by three women: Ametia, Rikyrah, and SouthernGirl2, I must nominate this as one of the most engaging blogs I've found. Devoted to politics and culture, these three shine a light on contemporary life with humor and spirit.